posted 12-04-200103:12 PM
There was an explosion in our chemistry lab today. It was a grade 11 class and one guy was seriously injured, w/ 4 other students w/ cuts and bruises. An ambulance was called, board of Ed. members were called in to investigate, first aiders all around the school were called to this room (chem lab room) ... It was insane.

How do you deal w/ something like that? How deal w/ seeing one of your peers so badly injured at school ... A place that's supposed to be safe. There was a counseling session set up in the library for people of that chemistry class and rumours started to fly about 5 mins after it happened.

Personally, i'm kinda ticked off. That it happened ... That people can talk about it so freely and make jokes about it ... That one of my friends called the radio station to tell them what happened ...(!!) How would you feel if something like this happened?

I have OAC Chemistry next semester and i'm already feeling kinda queasy just thinking about it.

posted 12-04-200103:36 PM
I once flooded my Chem Lab with big purple clouds of iodine gas. We once had a glass test tube explode sending shards of glass about the room, some imbeding themselves in a cork board. Fortunately, no one was injured in either case. It all goes to show that Chemistry class is serious business and the need to teach proper safety procedures for experiments.

BTW, my SO who attended the same high school as the Smurf, albeit 40 years ago, tells me this isn't the first explosion at the Chem Lab. She once had her nylon stockings disolved off from the knees down as the result of a chemical spill.

As for telephoning CJBQ (are those still the call letters?), this is news. Some radio stations give prizes for news tips.

------------------We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

posted 12-04-200107:46 PM
So it's not really the accident itself that upsets you, but the callousness with which it was treated?

two years ago, a man went to the 9th floor of the math building and jumped out a window. i can scarcely repeat the words of the newspaper article that followed the next day, but they included phrases like: "students were slightly inconvenienced" and "died of blunt force trauma."

while a journalist is supposed to maintain a certain level of objectivity when reporting, the person who wrote the article was just plain cold and insensitive to the value of human life.

and yes, i heard many of my peers complaining about having to walk "the long way around to the engineering quad" because the police had put up tape all around the body.

some ppl. geez! are we not human anymore?

------------------I bust my arse so that I can get somewhere in life, so why am I not there yet?

posted 12-04-200108:46 PM
Bob ~ I'm not really surprised ... Accidents happen all the time in chem labs, and they really shouldn't have been doing a lab w/o the proper teacher there, even tho it wasn't his fault. It was just an accident. And i understand that it's news, but i don't really think him and his friends would want someone calling into a radio station to tell them about our explosion.

Gummy ~ I think yo'ure right ... it's not exactly the accident that upset me. Just how uncaring some people can be. Maybe i'm just being over sensitive, i dunno.

Just because someone makes a joke doesn't necessarily mean they're a boorish pig insensitive to human emotions. A lot of people use humor as a way to diffuse anger, sadness, shock or other strong emotions.

Humor is also used to keep situations in perspective and keep people from panicking. If students started to really freak out, clean up and emergency services would be slowed. If the situation is downplayed, it sometimes helps people stay calm, which is the best thing.

BUT, if the comments and jokes were really outright mean, well... those people suck. [How's that for an ending? ::smiles::]

------------------"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" -Obi Wan Kenobi, Return of the Jedi

quote:Just because someone makes a joke doesn't necessarily mean they're a boorish pig insensitive to human emotions. A lot of people use humor as a way to diffuse anger, sadness, shock or other strong emotions.

Then again, some of us do make jokes because we simply don't care.

People are different. They react differently to things. Some people get upset and wail about it. Some people get upset and make jokes about it to calm down. Some people don't get upset at all, and tell jokes anyway because they think they're funny. These are all perfectly natural and normal reactions, and my only advice to you is to come to terms with this. The sooner you make peace with the idea that many people, by their very nature, are not sensitive, the easier life will get.
Posts: 266 | From: Portland, Oregon | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-05-200105:47 AM
I think often, people joke about things before they've really sunk in. If they haven't actually seen the accident happen, or they have and are still slightly in shock, then they make light of it.

This happened with me on September 11th. I was on the bus coming home from college when we heard about it, but no one had seen the awful pictures, or actually heard about it from a reliable source. So, we made light of it all the way home. We found it rather funny. Of course, as soon as I got in and switched on the news, I was in tears like everyone else, and I felt terrible.

Yes, although some people do make jokjes because they simply don't care, it can also be a lack of understanding of the severity of the situation, or just that it hasn't sunk in. Neither me nor my friends didn't care about what happened on September 11th, but we did joke about it before it was real to us. I don't think that makes us bad or insensitive people (well I hope it doesn't!). It could be that the same si true for the people at school.

------------------You wanna save humanity, it's just the people you can't stand-John Lennon

Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death whilst waiting to be killed.

posted 01-02-200203:06 AM
At my high school recently two male coaches got into a really bad fight. One of them got a broom handle and began to beat the other and they fought for several minutes. By the end of the day that occured there were numerous jokes and horrible rumours going around. I didn't know either of the guys involved but this made me really sad. It may sound odd because I had nothing to do with it but it's not cool when bad stuff happens and people don't care enough to not make fun of it. Love and peace.
Posts: 9 | From: Austin, Texas, USA | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted 01-02-200211:49 AM
Omg, I heard about that on the news! I stil can't believe that two adults who are supposed to be teaching students, setting an example for students, and keeping students safe would do something like that! It's beyond me! Do you know what they were even fighting about?
Posts: 25 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted 01-03-200202:55 AM
One of the stupid rumors was that they were fighting over a female teacher which is totally untrue. My cousin was in the class at the time and said that one of the coachs is a bit of a pervert to some of the students and the other had had enough of his inapropriate behavior and decided to put a stop to it. The school has suspended them from teaching and the police are looking into the matter. I'm not sure if they will be brought back or not.

------------------Love and peace"I was never truly insane, except on occasions when my heart was touched." Edgar Allen Poe.

posted 01-03-200203:26 PM
Sorry, but in the situation with the two teachers fighting, I'm not surprised that jokes went around. Its rather funny when you look at it from certain perspectives. But I agree with earlier points that humour is often used as an escape from various emotions such as fear, anger etc. I know as a fact that I am a horrible person in a sad situation because that part of my brain that controls sarcasm goes into overdrive. That's the way I deal with things and I know I'm not alone in that. However, the "inconvenience" issues are a bit too callous even for me! Some people are extremely selfish about things like that.

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